How to make money with Mediavine ads [2026]

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Want to make a really great passive income from your blog? Then join Mediavine! In this article I share exactly how to make money with Mediavine ads.

Hands up who wants to make money from their blog while they sleep? Passive income is like the holy grail of blogging. The idea of being able to earn a good income every month without having to lift a finger sounds too good to be true. And yet it is totally possible*. Put high-paying Mediavine ads on your blog and you can literally make money while you sleep.

*OK, OK – so there’s no such thing as truly passive income – you do need to put the effort in to grow your blog to the monthly pageview requirement for Mediavine to accept you. And then you will need to continue to put the effort in to grow your blog, because the more you grow your blog, the more money you will make from it. But income from Mediavine IS passive in the sense that, you could take a week off blogging – or even a whole month off blogging and you would STILL earn good money from Mediavine ads.

But how exactly do you do it? How do you get started with Mediavine? How can you grow your blog to the minimum threshold required to get in? And how much can you earn? In this article I share exactly how to make money with Mediavine ads.

**NOTE: Mediavine have recently announced some significant changes that came into effect on 15th January 2026. This article outlines the new situation.**

What is Mediavine?

First things first, what exactly is Mediavine? Mediavine is a full-service advertising management company. In other words Mediavine place ads on your site and manage all the complicated business of selling ads, optimizing ad placements, making sure the right ads appear on your blog in the right place at the right time, managing the relationship with advertisers and more.

All you have to do is sign up to Mediavine and then get on with the business of creating great content for your readers, safe in the knowledge that Mediavine will handle everything else and send you money at the end of each month.

Better still Mediavine are passionate about building sustainable businesses for content creators, which means they don’t just supply and manage ads, they also offer support, technology and resources to help their publishers (us bloggers!) to optimize their content and maximise ad revenue.

How do you qualify for Mediavine?

If all this sounds just too good to be true, there is a slight catch. Mediavine have strict qualification criteria.

To qualify for Mediavine, you must:

• produce original web content (for example, a blog)
• already be earning at least $5,000 a year in ad revenue
• be in good standing with Google AdSense (you’d know if you weren’t!)
• give Mediavine exclusive access to both your mobile and desktop ad inventory
• have a site design that accommodates Mediavine’s ad placements

Mediavine no longer have a minimum sessions requirement (it used to be a minimum of 50,000 sessions per month), but rather they state that you must already be earning $5,000 in ad income per year.

But to give you a rough idea, to be earning $5,000 a month from ad revenue, you will likely need something in the region of 25,000 pageviews per month.

For most bloggers, this will be the hardest criteria to meet.

(If that’s you, don’t worry – I’ll show you how to do that later in this article!)

However, this is not an exhaustive list and Mediavine evaluate each blog on its own merit and sometimes turn down applications for other reasons. For example, members of my Productive Blogging Community have reported that they have been turned down because:

• They did not have enough US traffic
• They had too much seasonal content and not enough evergreen content
• Their content was too short (You have more potential to earn from in-content ads with long-form content AND long-form content typically gets more traffic)
• Their website was not a Self-Hosted WordPress website

Psst. Nowhere near 25,000 pageviews yet? You may be interested in Journey by Mediavine. Journey is Mediavine’s ad management solution for smaller websites – you only need 1,000 sessions to qualify for Journey… and from there you can seamlessly migrate to Mediavine ‘Official’ when you are ready!

How many pageviews do you need to qualify for Mediavine?

Mediavine doesn’t state a specific pageview requirement. Instead they specify that you must be already earning $5,000 in ad revenue per year ($600 in ad revenue per month) to be accepted by Mediavine).

This obviously means that, to apply to Mediavine, you will already need to have ads on your site and be able to show a year’s worth of ad income that is at least $5,000.

In reality, to achieve $5,000 per year in ad revenue, you are looking at something in the region of 20,000-30,000 pageviews…

20,000 pageviews x an RPM of $30 = $600 per month = $5,000 per year
30,000 pageviews x an RPM of $20 = $600 per month = $5,000 per year

But, of course, this figure is just a guide. The precise number of pageviews you will need will depend on what RPM you are currently getting.

How can get achieve $5,000 per year in ad revenue?

Of course all this means that, in order to get into Mediavine, you will need to demonstrate that you are already getting $5,000 a year in ad revenue.

This will mean that to get into Mediavine you will need to:

• Already have had ads on your site for at least a year
• Already be getting around 25,000 monthly pageviews

To get ads on your site, your best option is to sign up for Mediavine Journey.

Journey is Mediavine’s ad management solution for smaller websites – you only need to be getting 1,000 sessions to qualify for Journey. This will allow you to begin earning ad income on your site, so you can demonstrate that ‘$5,000 per year from ad revenue’ criteria, and get Mediavine ads as soon as your site is eligible.

How can you grow your blog to 25,000 pageviews?

Of course, just having ads on your site will not be enough to qualify for Mediavine, you will also need to be getting sufficient pageviews for those ads to be earning you $5,000 a year from those ads.

Obviously how many pageviews you need to achieve this will vary enormously, depending on your RPM (see above), but it’s likely you’ll need something in the region of 25,000 pageviews.

But how do you grow your blog to 25,000 pageviews?

The best way to grow your blog to 25,000 pageviews is by optimizing your site for search engine traffic. In other words – search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is by far the best and fastest way to grow your blog. If you work hard on your SEO, you can easily grow your blog to 25,000 pageviews… and beyond!

SEO is a much easier and quicker way to grow your blog than social media or Pinterest. Better still, the traffic you get from search engines is far more reliable and consistent than traffic from social media and Pinterest and will continue to build and get better over time.

If you need help with SEO, you are in luck! I have lots of free resources on my blog to help you with SEO. I suggest to start with, you check out this post: A beginner’s guide to SEO for bloggers and this post 17 SEO mistakes to avoid. Then take a look at all my other SEO posts. If you work through those posts, implementing everything I advise, you will be well on your way to getting 25,000 pageviews.

Alternatively, if you want the ‘fast track’ – a more structured approach and a proven process – then do check out my SEO course for bloggers: SEO Jumpstart. Many of my students who have taken SEO Jumpstart have subsequently gone on to qualify for Mediavine and now earn good money from their blogs every single month. You can read their testimonials HERE.

How long does it take to grow your blog to 25,000 pageviews?

This obviously varies from blog to blog. My own experience is that it took about 3 months to grow my blog to 25,000 pageviews, once I started to take SEO seriously.

(For reference, before I started taking SEO seriously, my blog was at about 10,000 pageviews.)

When should you apply to Mediavine?

In order to get Mediavine ads on your site, you will first need to demonstrate that you are earning $5,000 per year from ad revenue.

If you want to get ads on your site ASAP, this means you should sign up for Mediavine Journey long before you get close to 25,000 pageviews.

You can sign up for Mediavine Journey once you have at least 1,000 sessions per month. However, you may want to hold off getting ads on your site until you have more traffic than that.

Having ads on your site – even really good ads from a reputable company like Mediavine – will almost certainly slow your site and make the UX worse for your readers. This could slow your traffic growth and mean it will take longer to reach the threshold needed to get into Mediavine ‘Official’.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you are only getting 1,000 sessions per month, your ad revenue from Mediavine Journey is likely to be around $10-$30 per month. (See this article for average RPMs from Mediavine Journey.)

So you need to ask yourself if getting ads on your site is worth it for an income of $10-$30 per month. It might be better to focus on digital products in the first instance, where you could be earning something close to $300 per month with just 1,000 sessions, and get ads on your site at a later date when you have more traffic.

That being said, if your site is growing rapidly, you may wish to consider getting Mediavine Journey ads on your site ASAP, so that you can meet that ‘$5,000 a year from ads’ requirement as soon as possible.

How do you apply to Mediavine?

Applying to Mediavine is very simple. The first step is to go to the Mediavine’s Website and the big hit APPLY NOW button. You will then need to follow the simple onboarding process.

Once you have done that Mediavine will be in touch with the next steps. This may involve supplying Mediavine with more information about your blog and making small changes to your blog, such as increasing your sidebar width, moving certain popups so they don’t interfere with ads or removing ads from other ad networks.

You will also need to upload the Mediavine plugin, which takes care of most of the technical stuff.

At every step of the way, Mediavine will help you – either by showing you exactly how to do what they are asking for, or doing it for you, if you prefer.

How long does the Mediavine application process take?

This does vary, but typically it takes about a month from first applying to Mediavine to getting Mediavine ads on your site.

What kind of RPM can you make with Mediavine?

RPM is short for Rate Per Mille. Rate Per Mille means the amount of money you get paid in dollars for every 1,000 pageviews.

Your RPM depends on a large number of things: how many ads you have on your site, where those ads are placed, whether you have any jump links (e.g. a ‘Jump to Recipe’ button), what country your visitors come from, what niche you operate in…

However, as a rough guide, when you first start out with Mediavine you can expect an RPM of $15-$25 per 1,000 pageviews if the majority of your audience are in the UK and an RPM of $25-$35 per 1,000 pageviews if the majority of your audience are in the US.

(Yep, US RPMs are THAT much better than UK RPMs!)

How much money do you make with Mediavine?

You can make serious money by putting Mediavine ads on your site. But of course, it does vary wildly, depending on location, niche, ad placement etc.

To give you an example, if you have 60,000 pageviews per month, and you are getting an RPM of $25, you would be looking at around $1,500 per month. And if you have 600,000 pageviews, and you are getting an RPM of $25, you would be looking at around $15,000 per month!

But it is totally possible to earn much more than that… To find out how, head over to my post on 12 easy ways to grow your Mediavine income.

How much control over ad placement do you have with Mediavine?

A lot! You can control how many ads you have on your site and where they are placed. You can control the spacing of ads in an individual blog post and even turn ads off for an individual blog post if needs be. You can also select which kinds of adverts you do and don’t allow on your site and choose whether or not your ads are lazy-loaded.

To begin with, Mediavine will set up your ads to their recommended settings… and they strongly advise that you stick with their recommended settings for a few months while everything settles down.

However, ultimately you are in control and you can decide if you want to dial your ads up or down to suit your audience and your revenue goals.

How long does it take to get paid on Mediavine?

Mediavine pays on a NET 65 basis. This means they will pay you 65 days from the end of the month that money was earned.

Mediavine state that they will pay you by the 5^th of each month. But in reality, you usually get paid on the 1^st or 2^nd of the month.

So, for example, Mediavine will pay you on or before April 5^th for all money you earned in January, on or before May 5^th for all the money you earned in February, and so on…

Is Mediavine better than AdSense?

Mediavine is way better than AdSense! I was with Google AdSense before I moved over to Mediavine. When I was with AdSense, I was earning approximately $1 per 1,000 pageviews. When I first started with Mediavine I was earning $10 per 1,000 pageviews. That’s 10 times as much! And that was just the start, I now a much higher RPM with Mediavine.

To give you an illustration, when I left AdSense, I had about 100,000 pageviews a month and was earning about $100 a month. My first month with Mediavine I also had 100,000 pageviews, but I earnt $1000 in my first month with Mediavine!

And my experience is not unusual! Recent research shows that average RPMs with Adsense are $2.34, whereas average RPMs with Mediavine are $31.55.

But it’s not just the money. Mediavine’s customer service is way better too, and because Mediavine offer a full ad management service, they do all the hard work, so hosting Mediavine ads is also much easier than hosting AdSense ads.

What is Mediavine’s customer service like?

One word – AMAZING! Mediavine’s customer service is one of the best I’ve ever encountered. If you have a problem, they will help you fix it. They will also go to great lengths to help you maximise your ad revenue. And if there’s ever a problem with ad performance at their end, they will make sure you as the publisher don’t lose out. Occasionally there have been problems either with Mediavine or with their suppliers (e.g. Google) which have meant that my revenue has been lower than it should have been. Each and every time, they have issued an extra payment to me to cover those losses – even if the fault wasn’t theirs! Now THAT is what I call AWESOME customer service.

Mediavine are also very on top of new developments in the blogging world and if something changes, they are quick to adapt to whatever that new requirement is. In fact, they are so on the ball, I often hear about changes in the blogging world from Mediavine, before I hear them from anyone else!

Is it worth joining Mediavine?

YES! If you want to earn a really good passive income from blogging, then I absolutely and wholeheartedly recommend joining Mediavine.

And if you do not meet the criteria to join Mediavine ‘Official’ yet, then I recommend that you sign up for Mediavine Journey and then work as hard as you possibly can on your SEO so that you can join Mediavine ‘Official’ as soon as possible.

Over to you…

Are you with Mediavine? How long have you been with them? Do you love them as much as me? Let me know in the comments below!

Or are you considering joining Mediavine? What’s stopping you? Do feel free to ask me any questions you have in the comments below…

More on this topic…

• 12 easy ways to grow your Mediavine income
• Everything you need to know about Journey by Mediavine [2026]
• How to make money on your blog… with advertising
• How to earn passive income from a blog: a step-by-step guide
• How to 10x your blogging income: step by step

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